WAY TO SEA
or: THE UNDERWATER JOURNEY BY RAIL FROM NORTH BEACH TO CENTRAL SQUARE
When I lived in San Francisco, I used to live in North Beach, and our apartment looked down over the bay, and you could actually see Alcatraz. Lying in bed at night I could hear the foghorns. They're so pretty and tuba-like, I began to wonder if you could make music based on the foghorns. It probably wouldn't be as pretty. But what if I could write myself out of the music? Could I make something as nice as the foghorns? What if there were no me, just sound? Who'd be left to play the tuba?
I went down late one night to the ferry building, to take the bus that takes you to the train. It was dark and I could hear the foghorns and the sea lions. I didn't even have to wait, I was on the bus already, going along the harshly over-lit Embarcadero. The bus started filling with smoke, and it was getting hard to see, and I turned to Paul and said, I think we're going underwater. I wonder if the bus has been hijacked. And Paul looked back at me and smiled with mocking delight and nodded his head, yup, and pointed out the window and we were still driving down the Embarcadero but it was the streets that were underwater, somehow there was a flood or something and we were going by the same buildings, traffic lights, billboards, but it was all underwater, and beautiful glowing fish went swimming by, all different colors.
I guess I was riding the train then, but outside the night was a deep dark blue. Paul had gone to the bar car I guess, and sitting next to me was a man wearing stupid hat folded out of newspaper like kids make and across from me was a goat wearing a jacket with patches on the elbows and little half-glasses and they both made me nervous so I looked out the window and I saw giant orange jellyfish flashing, deep at the bottom of the ocean now. They were spelling out words, or signs anyway which I couldn't read or understand, but still they were beautiful to look at and I felt happy and easy looking at them the way I did listening to the foghorns.
I guess I fell asleep, but anyway when I woke up the train was going along the coast and it was just before the sun was about to come up, you could just see the streaks of light orange on the blue horizon, and the grapes in the vineyards along the coast were glowing. The train turned right off the tracks and I thought oh no, it's going to go into the water, but somehow through some sort of hydraulic miracle we went over the water, we were actually airborne. Just then a school of electric colored flying fish came out of the water, right towards the train, and plunged back in before we collided.
We arrive at the station on track three and I switch trains. Opposite the station is a beautiful cathedral, looking like something from a Monet painting. James gets on and sits next to me and I'm happy to see him. He wants to kiss me on the mouth, and I don't mind, but he's obviously been up all night and his beard is scratchy and he smells like cigarettes.
The train starts going down the tram tracks, faster and faster, and we go over the bridge where the ions are supposed to cure depression. It's finally starting to get light, and I think we can go to the University and meet Tracy there. She's been there taking classes all night and we can take her home.
I hear the scream of the break shoe and feel the train stop and that wakes me up; it's my stop, Central Square. As I hurry to get off I realize, in a flash, two things: I realize that all the time I've been on this train doesn't count against the time I have to live, because the train is somehow outside of time; and I realize that every good band has a train song.
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